Hakim Belabbes

Today, a man remembers. As a teenager, madly in love with cinema, he had lived a unique story with a French woman. Even now, the woman seems to him to belong to a secret world - one made of desire but also of discovery. As much from innocence as curiosity, he explored that world. He also got a bit burned there. He remembers. In fragments. Like a man who wants to understand his past and his present. His life as a high school student, his double life among his adolescent friends, his family, then her. His desire to live life to the fullest in this town heated by the sun and by boredom. The timid and fierce love he had for a beautiful young girl of his age. But above all, his life in the cinema. He is a character; he is also an innocent who believed he could touch the stars.

Today, a man remembers. As a teenager, madly in love with cinema, he had lived a unique story with a French woman. Even now, the woman seems to him to belong to a secret world - one made of desire but also of discovery. As much from innocence as curiosity, he explored that world. He also got a bit burned there. He remembers. In fragments. Like a man who wants to understand his past and his present. His life as a high school student, his double life among his adolescent friends, his family, then her. His desire to live life to the fullest in this town heated by the sun and by boredom. The timid and fierce love he had for a beautiful young girl of his age. But above all, his life in the cinema. He is a character; he is also an innocent who believed he could touch the stars.

The residents of a small Moroccan city endure separate lives while knowing the same cycles of burden and small joys. Wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters maneuver their way through mourning as death takes loved ones and life insists on moving forward. Here, letting go is a challenge for both the dead and the living. The people of this city share the same world, but don't always know when they live in each other's lives, helping and harming each other. Connected by friendship, proximity, and blood, they both destroy and support each other. Through weddings, funerals, murders, forgiveness, love, new birth, and sacrifice, the living build community and hope. Meanwhile, the souls of the dead linger to watch over loved ones.

The residents of a small Moroccan city endure separate lives while knowing the same cycles of burden and small joys. Wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters maneuver their way through mourning as death takes loved ones and life insists on moving forward. Here, letting go is a challenge for both the dead and the living. The people of this city share the same world, but don't always know when they live in each other's lives, helping and harming each other. Connected by friendship, proximity, and blood, they both destroy and support each other. Through weddings, funerals, murders, forgiveness, love, new birth, and sacrifice, the living build community and hope. Meanwhile, the souls of the dead linger to watch over loved ones.

The residents of a small Moroccan city endure separate lives while knowing the same cycles of burden and small joys. Wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters maneuver their way through mourning as death takes loved ones and life insists on moving forward. Here, letting go is a challenge for both the dead and the living. The people of this city share the same world, but don't always know when they live in each other's lives, helping and harming each other. Connected by friendship, proximity, and blood, they both destroy and support each other. Through weddings, funerals, murders, forgiveness, love, new birth, and sacrifice, the living build community and hope. Meanwhile, the souls of the dead linger to watch over loved ones.

Ali Essafi visited Bouanani three years before the latter’s death. The filmmaker, poet and novelist who also made drawings was leading a reclusive life in a remote village with his wife Naïma and many cats, living in the midst of huge piles of books and manuscripts.

A both empathic and poetic drama set in the Moroccan countryside. Family, poverty, work and pride are the most important motivations of M’Barek, a poor farmer who fights to pay off his debts so that he can keep his land.

Hamza and Zineb travel to a remote area in the Atlas mountains in Morocco to research for parts they’re supposed to play in an upcoming rendition of the legend of Isli and Tisselt – a tale of two lovers whose tears are believed to have created the two lakes that bear their name.

Hamza and Zineb travel to a remote area in the Atlas mountains in Morocco to research for parts they’re supposed to play in an upcoming rendition of the legend of Isli and Tisselt – a tale of two lovers whose tears are believed to have created the two lakes that bear their name.

Gérard Courant's "Filmed Diary" of December 14, 2011, produced in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Between December 7 and 15, 2011, Gérard Courant was invited by the Dubai International Film Festival, in the United Arab Emirates. It was an opportunity for him to film many "Cinematons" of personalities from the Arab world and to continue his "Film Notebooks" from which he brought back 7 episodes.

In a tiny Moroccan village, a young father plans his illegal crossing into Spain. He assures his wife that he will telephone her three days after his departure, to confirm his safe arrival in Spain. However, the call never comes. |

In a tiny Moroccan village, a young father plans his illegal crossing into Spain. He assures his wife that he will telephone her three days after his departure, to confirm his safe arrival in Spain. However, the call never comes. |

An unflinchingly intimate chronicle of the filmmaker’s family in Morocco, made from footage collected over more than a decade, In Pieces captures the passage of time across generations. It is a poetic account of a country, as Belabbes, an eccentric figure in Moroccan cinema, records the extent to which larger social and political change has—or has not—affected his modest family. Narrated in a hybrid of first-person plural and singular, the film gracefully shifts between fiction and nonfiction.

Caught between chasing his past and accepting his impending end, a man follows his childhood memories through the dark alleyways and desolate cemeteries of Boujad, Morocco.

Boujad: A Nest In the Heat is a personal and anguishing look at issues of separation, independence and return. As director Hakim Belabbes chronicles his journey from his home in Chicago to visit his family in his hometown of Boujad in Morocco, his exploration of family relationships is self-conscious and at times painfully honest. We witness his most private moments with his family. Belabbes' film intimately explores the domestic spaces and religious rituals of intra-family relationships, especially when compounded by one member's break with traditional values.